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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124118">Right Here, Right Now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew'>stew (julie)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blade Runner (Movies), The Professionals (TV 1977)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>1992-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>1992-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:27:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Los Angeles 2019 A.D. – Bodie is a Blade Runner – and Doyle is a cop in the Drugs Unit who thinks Blade Runners are no better than assassins. Teaming up on the hunt for a rogue Replicant, they’re both confronted with more than they’d bargained for.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>William Bodie/Ray Doyle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Right Here, Right Now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The title is borrowed from the Jesus Jones song. ‘Watching the world wake up from history…’ </p><p><strong>First published:</strong> in  the zine ‘Other Times and Places’ #3 by OTP Press in 1992.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Right Here, Right Now </h1><p>♦</p><p>It had been a long  hard month. The Blade Runner Unit had ‘retired’ twenty rogue Replicants in as  many days, and five of the kills had been Bodie’s. He had finally been sent  home an hour ago by Captain Bryant, and told not to report in again until  Monday. ‘If you’re human, you need a break,’ Bryant had told his best Blade  Runner. ‘Go home, get those reflexes sharp again.’ Bryant had been gruffly  amused at Bodie’s annoyance – there were still two rogue units on the loose. ‘Go  on! Home!’</p><p>And Bodie had  obediently returned to the towering apartment block that held two rooms on the  eighty-seventh floor that were home, despite the itch to track down those two  skin jobs and terminate them. With extreme prejudice. When machines went rogue –  especially strong, super-intelligent, resourceful machines like these androids –  there was only one solution. And Bodie was it.</p><p>He mulled over the  divers trails that had brought him to this place, to this job, as he wearily  waited for a meal to heat. He’d been in enough armies, both public and private,  to now feel he’d lost track of his own history. He’d served on every continent  on Earth, on the Moon, had reached far-flung Space Stations on the Ziegfield  Attack Ships. The details all seemed remarkably sketchy now – he could remember  the stories, though the actual events were strangely remote. But being a Blade  Runner was, somehow, the crown on his colourful career. These last two years  were what his life was about.</p><p>Bodie collected his  meal and cutlery, wandered over to the table. <em>But I’m losing whatever made me the best Blade Runner.</em> There was  something that didn’t quite gel any more, something within Bodie. His edge had  been blurred by wayward feelings, confusion. And he got so damned weary these  days – everything had abruptly become far more difficult than it needed to be. These  qualities did not a Blade Runner make. In fact, it was a well-worn joke that a  Blade Runner should have no more feelings and no less energy than a Replicant.</p><p>Rarely given to such  bouts of introspection, Bodie shrugged off his reflections with a vague smile. He  moved to turn on his state-of-the-art sound system, plugged in the latest blues  disc. There were no neighbours to complain about the noise – his floor, and  those above and below, were all deserted – so he programmed the volume high in  an effort to chase away the uncertainties haunting him.</p><p>Bodie was deep in  the surge of sad music, a bowl of reconstituted vegetables and rice, and the  latest astrophysics text, when the door signalled a visitor. Surprised and  impatient at the interruption, Bodie glared across at the security monitor  until the man waiting outside pressed the call button again.</p><p>Bodie at last walked  across to pull open the door. He swept a comprehensive glance over the  intruder. Almost as tall as Bodie was, and his shoulders almost as wide, though  he had a slim figure. Green eyes large in a face that shouldn’t have been  beautiful. But Bodie was so tired he didn’t even bother wondering if the man  was straight – they usually were. Straight, or they expected more than Bodie  could give. Anyhow, even when life was going his way, guys this desirable <em>didn’t</em> land unexpectedly on his doorstep  and turn out to be both gay and accommodating. ‘Yes?’ Bodie prompted after a  length of uncomfortable silence.</p><p>‘Doyle. Captain  Bryant sent me.’ Doyle returned the Blade Runner’s stare, waiting for some sign  that his words had registered. The other man was built on a large scale,  strong, with classically handsome features and startling blue eyes framed by  cropped dark hair. And he was wearing a frown that might have daunted anyone  else.</p><p>At last Doyle  continued, ‘I have information here. About a Replicant.’</p><p>‘What’s its name?’</p><p>‘Tully. Bryant said  you were tracking him.’</p><p>‘Yeah.’ Bodie  nodded, stood aside to let the man in. ‘Which Unit are you with?’</p><p>‘Well, I’m not a  bloody courier,’ Doyle snapped, resentful, even though it was a civil and  reasonable question.</p><p>‘And you reckon  Bryant should have called me in and sent me down to your sterile little office…  Is that what’s owing to your dignity?’</p><p>Doyle glared at him.  ‘Detective Constable Ray Doyle. Drugs Unit.’ To distract himself from his own  annoyance, Doyle looked around the bare apartment, and dumped the files he’d  been carrying on the table by Bodie’s interrupted meal. The truth was, work had  been getting to Doyle lately. Over the years, it had often seemed he was the  only cop in the Department with any morality or conscience or concern for  getting the job done. And he’d coped with that more or less until recently,  when he’d found he’d suddenly had more than enough. The last thing he needed  right now was to be sent running off after someone who, from Doyle’s point of  view, was little better than a hired assassin. The rest of the Department  considered the Blade Runners to be heroes. Doyle sighed and collected his  wandering thoughts. ‘Tully’s been dealing,’ he informed Bodie. ‘Had to make a  living, I suppose.’</p><p>‘Do you have an  address?’ Bodie had turned off the music, was trying to shake off his lethargy.  Reaching for his jacket, holster and gun, despite that he could admit to  himself all he wanted right now was the comfort of his own bed, the benefit of  a full night’s sleep, without Doyle there to disturb the peace. Because Doyle  didn’t seem the type to… Bodie lost his train of thought, confused yet again. Was  Bryant’s best Blade Runner slowing up at the ripe old age of twenty-eight?</p><p>‘What!’ Doyle was  demanding, indignant. ‘You’re just heading out there now to blow him away?’</p><p>‘That’s why Bryant  sent you.’</p><p>Doyle stared at the  man, revulsion written hugely across the mutable face. ‘No, I don’t have an  address. But I have some leads.’</p><p>‘Let’s go, then.’</p><p>‘You’re not –’ Doyle  cut himself short, ran a hand back through his hair, absently remembering  (again) that it would riot soon if it wasn’t trimmed. He flipped open one of  the files before him on the table, gazed at the photo of the young man. Tully  looked no more than seventeen, and he was beautiful, with long blond hair and a  pert face and eyes as blue as Bodie’s.</p><p>‘Recreational model,’  Bodie said from over Doyle’s shoulder. He had the smug tone of a man fondly  remembering adventurous tumbles that he was nevertheless more than equal to. ‘Built  to <em>go</em>.’</p><p>The knowledge that  Bodie had been with men and didn’t mind admitting it jolted through the cop. Doyle  himself had been gay from the moment he’d first thought about sex. And he’d  been aware from the moment he’d first seen Bodie that the Blade Runner was  gorgeous – no matter that his manner was pure cold indifference. No matter that  he didn’t have a moral fibre in his body. Doyle hauled his attention back to  the photo of the rogue Replicant with determination. There were more important  dilemmas at hand.</p><p>‘He deserves –’ <em>Justice. A trial. A jail sentence. Not  summary</em> <em>–</em></p><p>‘Termination. Bloody  rogue – it should have kept to what it was made for. It’s dangerous.’</p><p>‘You can’t expect me  to help you kill him.’</p><p>‘So naive, Detective  Constable. You know what my Unit does.’</p><p>‘Yeah.’ Doyle  collected the files up again, followed Bodie to the door. He just hadn’t  expected to have his face rubbed in it like this.</p><p>♦</p><p>Bodie flew them  downtown in an unmarked spinner, above the traffic snarls and the crowds,  through the dark and the rain, under suspension bridges stretched between the  looming buildings, over crazy pedestrian catwalks. Doyle gave him a terse  summation of what he knew about Tully’s movements. He was only one of a number  of suspects Doyle was investigating, only one connection in a network of drug  buyers and sellers. When he’d finally found a name for the lovely face, and the  computer had thrown the fact that Tully was a Replicant back at him, Doyle had  known what the results would be. But he didn’t have to like it. And he hadn’t  expected to be a part of it.</p><p>‘They’re human  beings. By every definition that counts.’</p><p>Bodie was silent.</p><p>‘You know what you  are, don’t you?’ Doyle spat at him. He didn’t win a reaction.</p><p>‘Yeah, I know. I don’t  have a problem with it.’</p><p>Doyle just stared at  the man. It seemed an incredible waste all round. Humanity created Replicants  in its own image, but if they refused to be owned, the child-god smashed its  toys. To do so, humanity turned people like Bodie into cold, ruthless killers –  the Blade Runner may well have been a fine cop, if he hadn’t instead become an  assassin. There had to be better solutions, for all concerned.</p><p>The trip downtown  was a waste of time – the informer Doyle was supposed to be meeting at a bar  didn’t show up as planned. He spent half the evening eyeing Bodie, drinking  beer, and feeding his own irritation. He rarely let people close enough to  annoy him as thoroughly as Bodie had. But he didn’t want to explore why a Blade  Runner should have got through to him in a handful of hours when his colleagues  and family and sundry acquaintances couldn’t.</p><p>Bodie meanwhile read  quickly and thoroughly through the police files.</p><p>‘Don’t talk much, do  you?’ Doyle finally observed. His wandering mind had remembered something that  had piqued his curiosity and sense of outrage a short while ago.</p><p>‘Didn’t think you  had anything to say to me.’</p><p>‘I heard a rumour.’</p><p>‘Did you.’ Bodie  turned to the next page of the report he was skimming through. There were more  rumours, legends and lies about the Blade Runner Unit than about the rest of  the Police Department together.</p><p>‘That they created a  few Replicants to be Blade Runners.’</p><p>The blue gaze  snapped up. ‘What the hell –’</p><p>‘It makes a  perverted kind of sense, doesn’t it?’</p><p>‘You’re skating on  bloody thin ice, Doyle,’ the man ground out. He couldn’t remember anyone else  he’d ever met who would have been able to match the cop’s gall – ‘Calling <em>me</em> a fucking skin job!’</p><p>‘Just wondered,’  Doyle said equably. ‘No need to take it to heart.’</p><p>Bodie stood. Maybe  if the cop hadn’t been so irritatingly attractive, the Blade Runner would have  taken the files and left to chase the skin job on his own. As it was – ‘Let’s  go find that snitch of yours.’</p><p>‘Long as you don’t  terminate <em>her</em> on sight,’ Doyle tossed  at him. He grinned at Bodie’s murderous glare. ‘Only kidding.’</p><p>♦</p><p>‘There’s the skin  job now,’ Bodie whispered. They had been prowling the crowded streets and  alleys, searching – now they were wandering in relative quiet, the rain  drizzling, the myriad colours of neon lights and signs reflecting on the wet  asphalt.</p><p>Doyle’s gaze  followed Bodie’s to fix on the blond hair, the lithe figure. A deal was going  down, two blocks away.</p><p>More from habit than  by will power, Doyle walked beside Bodie as the Blade Runner casually sauntered  closer to his prey. ‘You’re going to cost me a lot of work,’ Doyle observed  lightly. ‘The network he’s part of – they’ll scarper. I’ll never see any of  them again.’</p><p>‘And I should give a  damn?’</p><p>‘I’ve almost enough  to bust the lot of them. Been working single-handedly on this one, too.’ He’d  decided it was time to try and prove something to his colleagues, something  about what hard-working cops were capable of. ‘Do us a favour and leave him be,  just forty-eight hours. Be the highlight of my career.’</p><p>Bodie cast him a  long look. ‘Mind your heart – it’s bleeding all over the sidewalk.’</p><p>‘Joined the police  to put murderers behind bars, didn’t I? And here I am helping one.’</p><p>A blimp passed  overhead, advertising blaring, spotlights sweeping randomly. ‘Just take it  slow,’ Bodie breathed under the camouflage of noise. They were on the same  block as the Replicant now. To the casual observer they were just two guys  hanging around looking for something to happen. But to Tully –</p><p>The Replicant caught  sight of them, assessed the pair in less than a moment. And ran.</p><p>Bodie took off  immediately, gun in hand, Doyle a step behind him.</p><p>Tully’s boyish  physique hid a speed and agility Doyle had rarely witnessed before. To his  chagrin he began lagging behind in the mad chase, Bodie surprising him as much  as the Replicant – he’d judged the Blade Runner as strong, but would never have  put money on the man keeping up with Tully, even gaining on him – Bodie was  surely built too solid.</p><p>It was the Replicant’s  knowledge of the area that saved him from the Blade Runner this time. He  disappeared into one of the towering buildings – the cops following him couldn’t  be sure of which one, having lost sight of him two twists and turns before.</p><p>‘We’re going to  search,’ Bodie said once Doyle had caught up.</p><p>The other man stared  at him, amazed and horrified. ‘You’re crazy! You want to get ambushed in some  squalid corridor, go right ahead.’ He paused for a few angry breaths. ‘You want  a knife between your ribs in the dark, help yourself. But don’t count me in  your plans.’</p><p>‘Need you to watch  my back.’</p><p>Doyle didn’t  register the warning note in the request. ‘No chance.’</p><p>Bodie turned an  expression of cold fury on the man. ‘That’s an order, Detective Constable. I  have the authority.’</p><p>But it wasn’t that  that got through to Doyle – he’d ignored authority before when it had suited  him. It was the sight of Bodie walking on to the next tower, crouching with his  back to the wall to quickly check that his gun was fully charged and loaded. He  seemed a vulnerable and insignificant figure alone in the desolate crowd of  buildings. Doyle’s admiration for the man’s skills and determination  reluctantly grew to equal and balance his revulsion for the Blade Runner’s  task. At least the man demonstrated more dedication than Doyle’s colleagues in  the Drugs Unit – more than them all put together, let alone more intelligence. He  wouldn’t help Bodie murder Tully – but neither would he stand by and watch a  man who had asked him for help walk into possible ambush.</p><p>Giving voice to a  string of curses, he jogged over to the Blade Runner. And was surprised to find  he’d won a smile from the man. ‘You’re still crazy,’ Doyle said.</p><p>Bodie’s smile grew. ‘Who’s  crazier – the madman, or the man who follows him?’</p><p>Doyle chuckled wryly,  appreciating the humour despite himself, his conflicting feelings about Bodie  evident on his face. ‘Don’t worry – I’m fully aware of the answer to that one.’</p><p>And Bodie surprised  them both with quiet laughter. After a moment he looked away, serious again,  trying to collect his scattered thoughts. Then he coolly shrugged, and led the  way inside.</p><p>♦</p><p>As they exited the  third building along, Doyle heaved a theatrical sigh and leant back against the  stonework. ‘The tension is killing me.’ Luckily the few people they had come  across in the mostly derelict towers had been more surprised than the two cops.  But they were pushing their luck – someone was going to come hunt them sooner  or later for having the temerity to be here. ‘Face it – Tully’s long gone. Or  he has a safe bolthole. Or he’s laughing at us from the next building and we’ll  never pin him down.’</p><p>Bodie nodded,  reluctant to let go.</p><p>Eyeing his  companion, Doyle could see he was bone-weary. ‘Come on, we’ll be home before  dawn if we’re lucky.’</p><p>‘Not going back.’</p><p>‘What?’ Doyle’s  sympathy turned to exasperation. ‘You’re not staying down here?’ He continued  in the face of Bodie’s silence, ‘Tully won’t be showing his face again.’</p><p>‘Got to pick up his  trail.’</p><p>Doyle shook his  head. ‘I would have called it tenacity if I was feeling complimentary.’</p><p>‘I’ve got a job to  do.’</p><p>‘Look at you – you’re  all in. Bryant told me you hadn’t had a day off in a month. He thought it was  funny, that you’d be at it again as soon as I came over.’</p><p>Bodie just looked  sullen.</p><p>‘We’ve wasted enough  time anyway.’ Doyle looked around them. ‘Let’s go back upstairs, find somewhere  out of the way. You can have a kip.’</p><p>At last Bodie  allowed, ‘Just for an hour.’</p><p>♦</p><p>Doyle gazed at the  Blade Runner, free to speculate now Bodie was oblivious to his attention. He  had begun to suspect that Bodie proved the rumour true.</p><p>All the Replicants  were beautiful, or full of a stereotyped character. Distinctive. Why make them  ugly, or even plain, after all? Humanity had the vanity to want its children to  be superb. Their strength, agility, intelligence were way beyond the norm,  whatever their function. And they were built and programmed for a purpose. Fulfilling  that purpose was all that they cared about – except for the rogues that the  Blade Runner Unit hunted – and they had no distracting emotions or conflicting  loyalties to get in the way. Doyle envied them their sense of purpose – they <em>knew</em> why they existed.</p><p>And here was Bodie,  as beautiful a man as Doyle had ever seen. As strong and supple and fast as a  panther. More than smart, judging from the books littering the otherwise bare  apartment, from how quickly he’d picked up all Doyle’s data on Tully, from his  at times pointed conversation. And so damned determined to do his job and do it  well. ‘Optimum sufficiency’ was the term for Replicants who functioned at the  level Bodie did. It all added up to an answer that sickened Doyle.</p><p>Creating Replicants  to kill their own kind. And not even allowing them the self-knowledge, the  awareness of who and what they were, that the other Replicants had.</p><p>It made a difference  to Doyle – if Bodie had been born and not made, Doyle would despise him as a  cold-blooded murderer. But if, as the cop was beginning to believe, the Blade  Runner was a Replicant, then Doyle could pity him, could admire his good  qualities for what they were in essence. Despite what Bodie was programmed to  use those qualities for.</p><p>And something else  made a difference – the trust Bodie had placed in Doyle’s own abilities and  motivations for this short hour. It might have been a necessary evil, but Bodie  had accepted it when few others had. Doyle favoured the unknowing man with a  wary smile.</p><p>♦</p><p>Bodie woke abruptly,  opened his eyes to see the cop sitting by him on the floor. He feigned sleep  for a few moments longer, still weary beyond what he’d ever known before. This  last month had got to him like nothing else ever had. It was crazy – he’d put  more work in than this before he joined the Blade Runner Unit, worked more  hours for less results for longer times at a stretch. But something was  happening within him. Things were starting to matter – things other than the  job.</p><p>And maybe this  determined refusal to let Tully go once he’d caught sight of him was an over-reaction  due to all this internal turmoil. Trying to pretend that his life was  proceeding on the same even keel. That he was still the perfectly functioning  Blade Runner.</p><p>But Detective  Constable Ray Doyle was, unwittingly, making it impossible for Bodie to  maintain those delusions. All his questions, his disgust at Bodie’s job, his  idiosyncratic opinions about skin jobs – to the Blade Runner’s surprise, all  the man’s words found faint echoes within him. And Bodie hadn’t questioned  anything for as long as he could remember. He frowned, trying to think back  over his soldiering days, his childhood – but there were no questions there,  and he hadn’t had any answers either. It all now seemed like a biography he’d  once read.</p><p>And, on top of his  words, there was Doyle’s overwhelming, disturbingly desirable physical  presence. The man was ugly in the way that human beings were. Not like the  crafted, too clever features of the Replicants – Bodie far preferred the  natural accident of beauty he could see in Doyle. But, being used to simply  finding a little mindless, energetic sexual relief on a regular basis, Bodie  was unsure how to even define what his body wanted from Doyle. All he knew was  that it was more, a lot more, than he’d had or even dreamed of until now. And  he reluctantly acknowledged it wasn’t just a physical response, either.</p><p>Doyle looked at his  watch, turned to Bodie only to find him already awake. ‘Time to get going,’  Doyle said.</p><p>‘Wild goose chase,’  Bodie admitted.</p><p>‘No – let’s try to  pick up his trail, seeing as we’re here. There’s a couple of people I can talk  to, if we can find them.’</p><p>‘Don’t humour me,  Doyle.’</p><p>The man seemed to  find that funny. ‘I’ve got a job to do, too. You can watch my back this time.’</p><p>Reeling under the  influence of Doyle’s smile, Bodie stumbled to his feet. He almost lost his  balance for a moment, but Doyle was smoothly rising, holding Bodie’s upper arm  to steady him. They were close for that moment, staring at each other. Bodie  could have leant in to take the man’s mouth with his own. He sensed Doyle would  have allowed it, but Bodie was wary of what he wanted from the cop, and vastly  unsure of what Doyle would want from him in turn. Instead of taking that leap  in the dark, Bodie schooled his features into their usual cold, efficient mask,  and pulled away from Doyle’s grip. ‘Let’s get going.’</p><p>They spent the  majority of the daylight hours wandering downtown, searching. The rain had  stopped at last, but the few patches of sky visible above were still dull. They  spoke to anyone that would listen, followed the few fruitless leads they were  given, but Tully might as well have left the planet.</p><p>And, whenever they  were alone, Doyle had questions. Bodie patiently found him as good an answer  for each as he could.</p><p>‘What did you do  before you became a Blade Runner? – Travel light, don’t you?’ There were no  mementoes at Bodie’s apartment – just books and the new collection of music  discs and the bare essentials for existence. – ‘Do you have <em>anything</em> that you’ve owned for more than  two years? – Why did you become a Blade Runner? – But why do you believe the  job needs doing?’</p><p>Or were they Bodie’s  own questions? Was he mentally putting himself through some sort of Voight-Kampff  test? And how many born-humans would pass that bloody test anyway?</p><p>Finally Bodie gave  up on the pretence of searching for the rogue Replicant, and headed back home  with Doyle in tow. He was exhausted, numb, sick inside at all the confusion.</p><p>‘How come you’re so  cold, indifferent, uninterested? – Have you ever felt <em>anything</em> for <em>anyone</em>? – Do  you remember your mother?’</p><p>Bodie knew,  hopelessly, wearily, what Doyle believed. ‘You think I don’t feel?’ he said  when his apartment door was behind them, shutting out the world. His hands  reached, grasped Doyle’s shoulders, hauled him close for a long, searching  kiss. Finally broke away when they were both breathless, aroused, needing. <em>This</em> was perhaps the only thing Bodie  was at all sure of anymore. ‘You trying to tell me I don’t feel this?’</p><p>‘No,’ Doyle  whispered, uncertain.</p><p>‘Maybe it’s <em>you</em> that doesn’t feel it.’</p><p>‘No.’ Confident this  time. And Doyle stepped close again, took the man into his arms.</p><p>Bodie let Doyle take  the initiative now, accepting the urgent hands and mouth, standing firm against  the insistent pressure of Doyle’s body. Amazed at how much he wanted this, how  much more he wanted. Sensations kicked through him, jarring the growing pain in  his chest. He responded blindly to Doyle’s kisses, forced his hands to run  lightly up and down the cop’s back, numbly aware of Doyle’s hard erection  through the material of their jeans.</p><p>The bed was a few  shaky paces away – Doyle led him there, impatiently got them both undressed. Then  Bodie was pushed down to the mattress, Doyle following, tangling up close.</p><p>For a while, Doyle  seemed content to thrust his cock against Bodie’s, mouth devouring his face and  shoulders and chest all the while. But at last, with an incoherent curse, he  pulled away, rolled Bodie up onto his side. And Doyle stretched along Bodie’s  spine, fumbling in his urgency to gain access to the man’s body.</p><p>There was a long,  still moment once Doyle had possession of him. ‘Dear god, Bodie,’ he muttered,  wondering both at himself and at Bodie’s passive acceptance. But then Bodie  shifted infinitesimally, and Doyle’s doubts were seared away in the heat of  pleasure. ‘Dear god…’ He reached for Bodie’s cock, his hand matching his body’s  urgent thrusts, chasing Bodie to completion before surrendering to his own.</p><p>Stillness again. Bodie  lay curled up in Doyle’s heavy, sated embrace, trying to cage in the chestful  of pain, refusing to betray it to Doyle in any way. Whatever Bodie was feeling  for, or because of, Doyle – the birth of it hurt.</p><p>But eventually Doyle  moved, was alarmed to discover how incredibly tense the man in his arms was. He  leant up on an elbow, held Bodie carefully, wouldn’t let him pull away, gentled  him with soothing hands and lips – maybe answering his own need as well as  responding to Bodie’s. Eventually the Blade Runner started to return the cop’s  caresses, initiating a slower game of loving. Gradually, he began to uncurl, to  stretch against the pain, to let it ease. And, at last, he quit trying to deny  the vulnerability.</p><p>Afterwards, he fell  asleep. But the confusion continued to haunt his dreams.</p><p>♦</p><p>‘No fiction here,’  Doyle observed, wandering around the apartment, fully dressed, peering into all  Bodie had to show for his life.</p><p>Bodie lay in his  bed, still naked, having woken to find only cold sheets where Doyle had been.</p><p>‘Why is that? Not  that you don’t have a fascinating collection of non-fiction.’</p><p><em>You’ve made your point, Doyle. And rammed it  home.</em> Bodie didn’t read  fiction – he didn’t understand it. Though he was now beginning to wonder if it  wouldn’t have made for wise research.</p><p>Bodie looked around  him. Everything in his apartment was created, synthetic. And nothing was more  than two years old. Except for Ray Doyle.</p><p>He knew what Doyle  believed. And he knew in that moment that Doyle was right. Maybe he’d known it  all along, deep down in the heart they’d given him – it was his programmed mind  that had battled on, not interested in the truth.</p><p>
  <em>I’m a new and artificial construct, just like  all my possessions. The goods reflect the man.</em>
</p><p>His fledgling  emotions had been trying to win his attention the last few weeks, surprising  him with music, with confusion and doubt. And then there had been the assault  on his body, mind and soul that was Ray Doyle. There was no way to avoid the  truth any longer.</p><p>‘Come on, Bodie. I’ll  buy you breakfast, then we can start after Tully again.’</p><p>Heading for the  bathroom, Bodie ignored Doyle’s assessing gaze. He remained silent while he  showered and dressed, outwardly indifferent to the witness. Silent while they  walked catwalks and pavements to a nearby cafe, while Doyle badgered him with  plans for the day. Silent while he waited for the full ramifications of his new  knowledge to make themselves known.</p><p>But Doyle wanted an  answer.</p><p>‘We’re letting Tully  go,’ Bodie said once they were settled at a table and had ordered a meal. Bodie  found he had more of an appetite than he’d had in weeks.</p><p>‘Just letting him  run? Why?’ Doyle was staring at him again, sharp and determined.</p><p>‘You bloody well  know why.’</p><p>‘Do I?’</p><p>Bodie sighed,  beginning for the first time in his life to look into his future. He was a  Replicant – a creation, not a born-human. And he was a rogue. Just like all  those poor bloody skin jobs he’d ‘retired’ over the past two years, the ones  who’d developed their own emotions, who’d thought they were human, who’d  decided they weren’t property any longer. The ones who’d found questions that  they wanted answers to.</p><p>Well, damn it all to  hell, <em>Bodie</em> thought he was human,  even though Doyle had made him realise he was in fact a two-year-old, flesh-and-bone  machine, programmed to kill his own kind.</p><p>But Doyle had stayed  the night, knowing. Doyle had given him what Bodie had needed and hadn’t been able  to describe even to himself. Doyle didn’t hate him for what he was. Not like so  many others would.</p><p>Bodie let out a  strangled laugh. ‘Bryant’s going to die – getting ‘retirement’ orders for <em>me</em>. He’ll die of the shame of it.’</p><p>‘He wouldn’t know?’</p><p>‘Hell, no. I’m his  best. He <em>liked</em> me.’ At Doyle’s frown,  Bodie elaborated, ‘He loathes skin jobs. Especially ones with a mind of their  own. He wouldn’t have the first idea he had a Replicant working for him. Fears  them, I suppose,’ Bodie added, wondering. Was his own prejudice programmed? Did  knowing that negate his brain’s instruction to hate? How much of him – <em>No, it’s all a program. My soldiering days  are someone else’s memory, or poorly written fiction. So are my parents.</em></p><p>
  <em>I start right here, right now, from scratch.</em>
</p><p>Doyle was watching  him closely. ‘You’re taking this very well,’ he said, cautious. More worried  than relieved. He had expected anger, outrage, disgust. Instead, Bodie was full  of a gentle amusement and quiet dignity. The man seemed to have at last found  himself some peace.</p><p>‘It’s the truth that  matters,’ Bodie replied. The confusion, the sense of wrongness, were beginning  to ebb away – that was what he most cared about. Maybe there would be worse  times to cope with, but for now he was simply satisfied. His life was his own,  to do with as he would. Smiling, he shrugged at his companion. ‘You going to  hang around? Might need someone to pick up the pieces later, when it all comes  crashing down.’</p><p>‘Sure.’ Though Doyle  was still wary. ‘Don’t have anything to stay here for.’</p><p>‘Your job?’</p><p>Doyle shook his  head. ‘There are other things we can do.’ And Bodie, with his new self-awareness  that Doyle had somehow miraculously been a part of, meant more to Doyle than  the Department where he’d never belonged, a job that he’d never had the support  to do properly. Bodie might well be the first and the last person he felt this  much a part of.</p><p>And, Doyle admitted,  his curiosity was ablaze. What would Bodie do now – what would he become? Would  all those qualities that Doyle had admired him for remain his?</p><p>Bodie was  continuing, ‘First thing is to get out of Bryant’s jurisdiction. Out into the  wilderness. Up to the Moon. Whatever. Then we can look at new careers. Or not,  as we like – I’ve got money put aside.’ Money he’d rarely had anything to spend  on before now.</p><p>‘No revenge?’</p><p>‘That’s the trap  they fall into. They want to know who made them, they have questions and they  never do like the answers. Add to that, their creators don’t like being  questioned, don’t like facing the fact they’ve failed.’</p><p>‘That’s enough for  you,’ Doyle said flatly, still needing to be convinced. ‘Just knowing that, is  enough?’</p><p>Bodie returned the  man’s stare. ‘What do they say? – life’s too short, Doyle. I might only have  another two years. Termination dates. It would all be on file – that’s another  mistake they make, wanting to know.’</p><p>‘Jesus,’ Doyle  breathed, face pale. He reached across the table, clutched Bodie’s hands tight  in his. ‘But you might not have a termination date. They might have decided to  let you grow old.’</p><p>‘If I survived the  job, that is. There aren’t many Blade Runners die of natural causes.’ Bodie  laughed. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe they rely on that. But they don’t let the  sophisticated ones have long – four years usually. Too likely to turn rogue.’</p><p>‘Then we get out of  here. Make the most of it.’</p><p>‘Yeah.’ Bodie gazed  across at the man. He had his own simple self to build on. And he had this man’s  companionship. He had two years. It was a good place to start.</p><p>♦</p>
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